Ruach: A Mighty Wind

"The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord:

and thou givest them their meat in due season.

Thou openest thine hand:

and fillest all things living with plenteousness.

Bless, O Lord, these gifts to our use and us to thy service;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen."

We sang these words of Psalm 104 every evening before dinner at The General Theological Seminary in NYC. They echo in my soul day after day. And yet, I have always wished this grace before meals would include these other lines of Psalm 104 which long have been my favorite:

Yonder is the great and wide sea

with its living things too many to number, *

creatures both small and great.

There move the ships,

and there is that Leviathan, *

which you have made for the sport of it.

I love it! How wonderful to think that God creates things like whales, fish, and well, us, just “for the sport of it!” At the heart of God’s great joy of creating things is one of the very first words in all the Bible: ruach – Hebrew for breath, wind or spirit. Which the ancients understood as all one thing. They recognized that breath, wind and spirit are what lie at the very heart of the mystery of “life.” It became evident that with ruach there is life – with no ruach, there is no life. We breathe in, literally inspire, breath, wind and spirit, and we return breath, wind and spirit to the world. We are created to givest life to the world!

This same ruach that created Leviathan for the Sport of it, blew the ruach of YHWH into a handful of dust and mud, into the nostrils of the first human being. And it was good! The New Testament Koine Greek calls this ruach, “pneuma” – as in pneumatic tires, tires filled with air. Or, pneumatic drill: a drill powered by compressed air to give it more sustained power. And in Sanskrit there is one word, “prana,” that breath that is considered the life-giving force of all creation – prana which lies at the heart of yoga practice, and at the heart mindfulness or contemplative practice.

We may notice that our readings offer us two opposing yet complimentary interpretations of what happened one day in Jerusalem when the Holy Ruach of YHWH turned a roomful of frightened, downcast and isolated friends of Jesus into a force for good in the world. Very much like many of us, they were hiding behind closed doors in that room where they had shared a last meal with their master, teacher and friend. Hiding from very real and palpable threats outside of that room. It seemed to be a safe place, but there is no-thing that can withstand the mighty Ruach of YHWH from coming from wherever it comes from and taking us we know not where, as Jesus had said that night with Nicodemus while discussing the Spirit-Ruach of YHWH.

This ruach is at the heart of it all. Luke’s depiction in the book of Acts is powerful, dramatic: the rush of a mighty wind, and divided tongues ‘as of fire’ – not fire per se, but something ‘as of fire,’ which explains all this Red we have all over the place this morning. And suddenly a frightened, hiding, cowering room full of people became eloquent public speakers proclaiming the Good News, the Gospel, from the Old English god-spel, story of god, Old English for the Greek ev-angel-ium – literally ‘good angel.’ An angel was a messenger from God, from YHWH, the source of all creation, the source of Ruach that is life, the source of all news worthy of our attention. This YHWH sends a good-angel, a good messenger with good news for all the people everywhere! And the scared ones tell out the good news, and people from all over the world understood what they were saying in their own languages! And then they conclude, ah … they must be drunk! Leave it to people to look at the wrong end of a miracle every time saith Saint Kurt of Vonnegut!

Yet, the scene in John is markedly different. The friends of Jesus are still hiding, scared of what lies beyond that locked door. They had seen what had happened to their master Jesus. Surely, the must have thought, we are next! Then suddenly there he is. He is here. Not a ghost. See the wounds. It is He! He says, “Shalom – my shalom I give to you.” Then he breathes on them. No fire. No wind. Or, is his breath, the breath of all life, powerful enough to knock them down like so many bowling pins; like a powerful bellows that puffs up the dying embers into a roaring blaze once again! Yes! Once blown upon by his mighty Ruach they are transformed – made into living ev-angel-ium, god-spel, good news for all people. And they are no longer afraid. The spirit is strong with them once again! They venture out into the world. And nothing, no-thing, has been the same since.

For they were filled with the Ruach of YHWH. YHWH, the name of the God of Israel that is never to be spoken. When it appears in Hebrew, one is to read ‘adonai’ or ‘haShem’ instead. No  one knows how to pronounce it. Which has led to much wild speculation. Until recently. It is now thought by some meant to mimic the sound of our breathing. Yah…Wheh,,,Yah…Wheh. In-breath, out-breath. In-breath, out-breath. Which Richard Rohr speculates means that the first word we say at birth when we begin to breathe is the name of God, and the last word we speak as we expire our very last breath is the name of God. That is, we are filled and enlivened by the name of the One who made Leviathan and all of us for the sport of it!

Rohr goes on to suggest that there is no Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, orTaoist way of breathing. There is no rich, poor or middle-class way of breathing. There is no American, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, African or European way of breathing. This Ruach of YHWH levels the playing field in which we are all One with the One breath, the One life, the One spirit. We are blown upon by the Mighty Wind that takes us to places we would never imagine going! To do and proclaim things that we never imagined we could do or say. You will do the things that I do, he had said. And greater things than these shall you do!

It can happen anywhere, anytime. It can happen as a mighty tsunami of change, or it can happen in a quiet moment of sheer silence when our all too restless mind is stilled and we suddenly become aware of the great depth of the mystery of our very existence and all is made new again. Pentecost means the Fiftieth Day – it was the Fiftieth Day after Passover. It is the Fiftieth Day after Easter. Seven weeks of seven days plus one more. The “one more” is understood as a new beginning, a new creation, a literally inspired reawakening to who we are and whose we are!

And of course, science has now told us that all of this we call creation comes from one spectacular burst of Ruach some 14 billion years ago, and that every molecule we breathe in and breathe out comes from that one burst of energy, so that the very air we breathe is the same air of the cave men and women, and the same air as that astronauts breathe while blasting through the heavens. This means, of course, we all are, literally, all One! One with the very source of life that sustains us with every breath we take. One with one another and all of creation. That mighty wind fills our sails and sens us to places and peoples unknown to bring the god-spel, the Good News, that yes, we are all in this together. And, yes, we are God’s Beloved. And yes, He filleth all things living with plenteousness. And yes, He givest us all good things in due season. And yes, He hath made us and sustains us with his breath, his holy wind, his holy spirit, his mighty Ruach! And yes, yes, yes, He hath made us and Leviathan for the sport of it! And it is good, He says. It is good. It is very very good. And it is always Pentecost every morning that we open our eyes and draw our first breath of the new day. Every morning. Every day. Always we begin again. And again. And all shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well! Amen. Amen! Amen!